


Nodus Tollens

by Eblis (Huff_Puff)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Episode Prompto, Hurt No Comfort, One Shot Collection, Poor Prompto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 19:14:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13037631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huff_Puff/pseuds/Eblis
Summary: Nodus Tollens - The realization that the plot of your own life doesn't make sense to you anymore.





	Nodus Tollens

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've written in a while. I'll be posting small drabbles here and there as I write. Constructive criticism would be appreciated, as I am looking for ways to improve my writing!
> 
> I apologise for any mistakes. At this stage I'm posting it unbeta'd, but I'll be fixing any errors when I come back to it.
> 
> Spoilers for Episode Prompto Set during the campfire scene.

The fire crackled like lightning in the mouth of the cavern, broken only by the scrape of Prompto's spoon against the side of his soup can. He fiddled with the spoon, tapped it against the side of the can and then dropped it back in when it began to feel to leaden to hold up.

"Almost as good as what Iggy used to make," he said to himself. The smile he tried to put on his face never got close enough to the surface to stick.

The can was labelled soup, but it tasted like motor oil. It sat laden on his tongue, and sunk thick and viscous down his throat. It clogged on the churning gears in his stomach, grinding them to a stand still. He pressed a hand to his gut, pushed in but only felt the lunps of flesh and bone where the potential for metal and wires was once promised.

He laughed to himself, tried to lighten the mood. The sound was about as bright as heavy rain clouds before a storm.

"At least it's...quiet for a change."

Prompto supposed it made sense, now, why he'd always felt like he was malfunctioning some way. In Niflheim's eyes, he was. In Lucis' eyes, he might as well have been an abomination.

He clenched and unclenched his jaw with each breath in and out. Slowly in, count to five. Hold for five. Slowly out, count to eight. Now wasn't time to let any screws come lose. Butterflies made from titanium glass shredded his belly into ribbons of oil and blood.

He put the can down on the ground with a hard thunk. Part of him wished that he would turn and throw it, hear it smash against the cave wall so it's contents spilled out everywhere like the fears in his head. He wanted it to freeze wherever it landed, and maybe pretend for a little while he was capable of doing the same.

His barcode stood out stark against his pale skin in the fire's light. Slowly he let his arm fell back into his lap, gaze firmly pinned to the intrusive black panels. Like cell bars.

He'd had problems with his body in the past, sure. But it had always been _his_ body to bend and break, to build into something to be proud of. This was a crisis on another level entirely. He felt trapped. Locked away, with no escape route.

He scraped at the barcode, scratched and clawed at it as if he could scratch it away. The frantic, desperate panting that permeated the air was a hacksaw buzzing at full strength.

Maybe if it wasn't there, he could call himself Prompto, again. Maybe Noct and the others would give him another chance. Maybe they'd even tell him he was a human like them, and maybe he'd even believe them.

All he managed to do was rub the skin raw red. It only seemed to make the thick bars all the more prominent.

"Dammit," he whispered to himself.

Ever the optimist, Prompto let his thoughts drift to the silver linings, because there was always a silver lining, right? So, maybe this body was supposed to be a vessel for Niflheim's worst creations, but at least he could count on his mind being his own. He doubted Niflheim wanted anxiety ridden soldiers, or ones so clumsy they tripped on their own laces.

Or maybe, maybe that was their whole plan all along? Convince him he was his own person, and then bam - flip a switch and he was murdering Noct and the guys in their sleep.

The fire crackled, flaring with the seed of anger that suddenly made itself known in the very pit of his stomach. It split, grew, multiplied - festered into something that spilt tears down his cheeks and darkened the edges of his vision. The smoke grappling at the roof of the cave spread like paranoia.

Part of him wished he wasn't in a clear mind when he grabbed the piece of the wood from the fire, because at least then he could have denied accountability for his actions. Nevertheless, his head was uncrowded for once. His anxieties seemed to have fled in that moment. Save for the anger that made him shake in his boots, he could only think one thing.

_Get rid of it._

His hands were calloused from handling guns - and _oh_ , wasn't that a laugh in itself? He thought he'd been different to Noct and Ignis and Gladio, that he could _help_ , but he was just another Nif with a gun, after all. Not anything special.

The tinder crackled with flame, casting an ardent glow over the brand on his wrist. He debated, wavering the wood above him wrist.

One second. Two. He dithered, readjusted his grip on the end of the wood. A splinter pierced the pad of his palm. He barely noticed the pinch.

Two years ago, if someone told him he'd be sitting alone in a cave deep in Nif territory after his best friend kicked him off of a moving train, he would have laughed awkwardly and asked if they'd had a bash to the skull recently.

Gods, a _week_ ago he wouldn't have thought so, either. He didn't know how things could have gone so wrong so quickly, as if someone had snapped his fingers from under that mountain of a coat that looked like it belonged in the previous century and suddenly everything he'd ever known had fallen away and left him to drown in the quicksand.

He might have prayed to the Astrals, before. Even though they were unkind, and expected too much and gave too little, he still believed they were looking down upon him, a guiless human subject like so many others.

Realistically, though, he'd probably fallen out of favour with them as soon as he'd been created in that lab.

It all stemmed back to the code on his wrist. That stupid barcode had caused him nothing but trouble since day one. A small, childish part of him couldn't help but wonder if it was the reason his parents had never been home when he was a kid.

Prompto turned his face away, pressed the wood down hard against the barcode. Pain seared down his arm as he pressed the tip of the wood into his wrist. The deep heat that blistered across his wrist kept him locked away from his thoughts. His body - _their_ body. Niflheim's - burned, and even through his whines and gasps and cries he felt a sick sense of satisfaction, because surely Niflheim wouldn't program an MT to destroy it's own identification? That'd be counterproductive, right?

When he couldn't take the heat any longer he yanked the wood away, throwing it across the cave floor and digging his nails into the skin around the welt. He was hunched over and panting from the pain, gasps bouncing off the cavern walls. He squeezed his eyes closed, counted to himself, and opened them again when he could find the strength to look at the damage.

The tissue on the top of his wrist was warped around the wound, red and blistering already. It was probably going to get infected, but he couldn't find it in his heart to care enough to use a potion.

Two years ago, Prompto had been so sure how his life was going to go. He was going to get a freelance job as a photographer, and then one day turn that into a full time career as Noct's royal photographer. He'd maybe get himself hitched to a nice girl who liked dogs, and they'd live their happily ever after in Insomnia until they were old and grey.

A week ago, Prompto had thought that at the very least he'd meet that special someone and get the happy every after he'd always hoped for.

Now he didn't even know what tomorrow was going to bring. Maybe he wasn't _real enough_ for that happily ever after. Maybe this was what he deserved.

The black lines weren't bubbled and twisted, like he'd hoped. They were clear as day even under the burn, barely even warped, and certainly not bent, or broken. He wondered if he peeled back the layers of his skin he'd find it tattooed into his bones.

The thought kick-started the gears in his stomach, let something burble up that was both a laugh and a cry, and it was like pulling teeth out of the mouth of a Courl.

"Heh..." He swallowed the motor oil in his throat. It burned like acid the whole way down. "Branded for life."


End file.
